When Your GPS Unit Reads the Same But Your World Looks Different

Mike Leake 1 Comment

Sojourn-1PeterWe begin a new series this Sunday evening on 1 Peter.  The series will be entitled Sojourn: A Travelers Guide to Christian Pilgrims.  Here is the introduction to the series on 1 Peter.  If you live in the Jasper, Indiana area I invite you to give us a visit Sunday evenings starting at 6:00.  If not feel free to check out our sermons online.

Do you remember the story of Rip Van Winkle?

It is set before the Revolutionary War in the 18th Century. Rip is kind of a lazy guy with a nagging wife. One day as she is nagging away at him he wanders up the mountains with his dog. He meets up with some fun-loving chaps and he ends up having a little too much whiskey.

When he wakes up his gun is rotted and rusty, his beard has grown a foot long, and his dog is nowhere to be found. He soon discovers that much more than his beard, gun, and dog have changed. The whole world it seems has changed to him. He gets in trouble for saying he is a loyal subject of King George, they are calling some other guy (what turns out to be his son) by his own name, his wife has died and most of his friends have died in the war as well. His GPS unit would still read the same location but somehow his very home has changed underneath him. He is, it appears, living as a stranger in his own hometown.

Now every analogy breaks down at some point so don’t press this any further than the single point that I am making. What happened to Rip Van Winkle is very similar to what happens to believers when God invades our life and transfers us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His beloved Son Jesus. Our GPS unit still reads the same but everything is different. We start to live as a stranger in our own hometown.

This is especially weird if the Lord saved you a little later in life. If you have grown up in church most of your life I doubt you experience the Rip Van Winkle effect. But I remember how it was really strange how everything started to change. My view of life was different. Not all that cataclysmic at first but over time I look back and my whole view is shaken to the core. My friends no longer treat me as such a great friend. There is something that has decisively changed. Even within my own family I can feel that something has changed. The things that I once loved I cannot seem to find pleasure in anymore. The things that I used to find really boring, dull, and drab I now cannot seem to get enough of. The Bible—which once seemed confusing as all get out—I cannot get enough of. My GPS unit still reads the same but everything around me is different. Actually it’s not only the outside world that is different—but I’m different. 

This is what has happened to the believers that the apostle Peter writes his letter to.  Their GPS unit still read the same but they found themselves as exiles in their own homes.   And that is why we have titled our series on 1 Peter as Sojourn: A Travelers Guide for Christian Pilgrims. That is what we are sojourners/pilgrims and 1 Peter is written to those just like us that find themselves living in a strange world that they once called home.

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Thanks to Doug Baker for providing the graphic.

Proverbs for Christian Blogging: Don’t Pick a Fight That Isn’t Yours

Mike Leake 3 Comments

“Do not contend with a man for no reason, when he has done you no harm” –Proverbs 3:30

In other words don’t pick fights that aren’t yours.  That sounds reasonable enough but it kind of begs a question: what fight is mine? 

Consider this example.  I attend The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.  I have a vested interest in what happens there.  Dr. Albert Mohler is our President.  He is someone that I consider to be a very faithful man and a great leader.  In a very real sense he is one of the authorities that the Lord has placed in my life.  So, what happens when bloggers start taking on Dr. Mohler?  Is this my fight?  It involves me…sort of.

Or another example.  I am a pastor at First Baptist Jasper in Indiana.  I certainly have a vested interest in what happens here.  If the local paper began maligning one of our members would this be my fight?  It involves me…sort of. 

Though it is difficult to wade through these questions it is not impossible.  In his commentary on the Proverbs Charles Bridges notes:

We must guard…against causeless strivings.  A propensity to embroil ourselves in quarrels kindles strife, instead of following the rule of peace.  This spirit is a great hindrance to holiness and inconsistent with a true servant of God.  Irritable persons strongly insist upon their rights, or what they conceive to be due to them from others.  ‘Is there not’—say they—‘a cause?’  But impartial observers frequently judge it to be a striving without cause; that no harm has been done; none at least to justify the breach of love; that more love on one hand, and more forbearance on the other, would have prevented the breach; that ‘there is utterly a fault—Why do ye not rather take wrong?’” (Bridges, 39)

From Bridges’ commentary, the rest of Scripture, and my own experience I have developed these ten questions that I at least subliminally consider when deciding to “contend”. 

  1. Is this really “harm”?  Will a response from me only ratchet up the offense (add fuel to the fire)?  Sometimes we make things a bigger deal simply by pointing them out or challenging someone on them.  If it’s not actually harm then don’t ride your sled down the slippery slope and make a big deal out of nothing.
  2. How directly involved am I?  Is this my wife being maligned or is this a friend of a guy I knew in college?
  3. What is my heart in this?  Am I going to contend just to show how masterfully I can argue my points?  Is my contention just to gain notoriety or to win an argument?  Do I have a natural propensity to unnecessary controversy?  If I do, then I had better proceed with caution.
  4. Does my opinion matter?  Of course, like your grandma says everybody’s opinion matters.  But some opinions matter more.  That’s just life, sorry granny.  Per the above example concerning Dr. Mohler.  At this particular time in my life even if I “defended” Dr. Mohler from negative blogs—my opinion carries such little weight on these issues because I’m so far removed from his position that I probably should just let others closer to the situation deal with it. 
  5. Is this a “fire” issue?  Am I defending the deity of Christ or am I defending what prison Paul was in when he wrote Philippians? 
  6. Can the offense be covered in love?  Seriously, can I reasonably just drop this or will it continue plaguing my soul.  If you aren’t sure wait a day before responding to that blog comment.  If you “lost your chance” or you aren’t as fired up about it tomorrow it’s probably a good thing you hit “cancel reply”. 
  7. What do impartial observers say?  I know in our instant online society you post a tweet—it’s awesome for about 20 minutes and then nobody really remembers it.  But perhaps before entering a contention you should ask a few people that are distant observers. 
  8. Is it helpful to simply “eat this one”?  Most controversies will die out if you don’t respond to them.  Is that helpful?  Can you just not respond?  So what if a guy leaves a comment and thinks that my article was really dumb and he is upset that I misused a comma. 
  9. Do I have the right to interject truth?  I’m a little more quick to “contend” or give my opinion if it is with someone that is in my church.  I have “won the right” to interject truth.  But I don’t have any plans to write Rob Bell and tell him to repent.  Others have “won the right” to interject truth.  There are some issues that I should just leave up to a guys pastor or accountability group to deal with. 
  10. Should my contention be public or private?  Even if I do decide that I ought to contend I still cannot just type up a response and hit send.  I need to make sure that my contention should go public.  And that is an entirely different issue.

You might be thinking, “Wow, this seems tedious.  I probably would never comment if I followed through on all these”.  My response?  Good.  If it’s not your fight don’t bring boxing gloves and start throwing left hooks. 

Review of The Explicit Gospel by Matt Chandler

Mike Leake

In 1786 Andrew Fuller wrote:

It seems to be one of Satan’s devices, in order to destroy the good tendency of any truth, to get its advocates to [make it trite] out of its senses, dwelling upon it in every sermon or conversation, to the exclusion of other things.  Thus the glorious doctrines of free and great grace have been served in the last age, and so have fallen sadly into disrepute.  If we employ all our time in talking about what men ought to be and to do, it is likely we shall forget to put it into practice, and then all is over with us.

I had high hopes of giving you a statistic about the number of books being sold on Amazon in the year of 2012 with the word “gospel” somewhere in the title.  I sorted them by Publication Date and scanned through 26 pages only to realize that I was only on April of 2012 starting from the December of 2012 selections to be pre-ordered.  I gave up.  It would have taken way too long to sift through all those to find a manageable number.  The word gospel has become somewhat of a buzzword. 

It is certainly a danger to have a “misfocused focus on gospel-centeredness”.  It is also a danger that with all of our talk of the gospel and the implications of the gospel we will in the end be guilty of simply assuming the gospel.  In doing so there is a real danger that all of us can be throwing around the term “gospel” but talk about two totally different things.  Matt Chandler has written The Explicit Gospel “to make sure that when we use the word gospel, we are talking about the same thing”.  It is Chandler’s desire to make the gospel explicit. 

Summary

In explaining the gospel Chandler looks at the gospel from two different vantage points; namely, ground and air.  The first part of the book is dedicated to what is termed the gospel on the ground.  Here he follows the God-Man-Christ-Response summary of the gospel.  He devotes a chapter to explaining each of these terms and within each chapter often engages in some polemics about what the gospel is not. 

The second part of the book is dedicated to what is termed the gospel in the air.  Here he follows the Creation-Fall-Reconciliation-Consummation meta-narrative of the gospel.  Again he devotes a chapter to each heading, explains the story, and occasionally engages in narrowing the definition to the exclusion of some other positions. 

The third, and final, section of the book engages a couple of dangers associated with an overemphasis on either of these gospel summaries.  In the ninth chapter Chandler looks at the dangers of keeping the gospel on the ground for too long, while the tenth chapter give the same treatment to the gospel in the air.  He notes that we must be faithful to both of these gospel summaries to really be faithful to the explicit gospel.  His eleventh chapter deals with moralism (which is really what the book aims to do battle with).

If you have spent any time listening to Matt Chandler preach you know what this book is about.  Chandler can be hard-hitting and funny at the same time.  He is engaging and yet serious.  Chandler’s preaching style is captured well in this book. 

My Take

First of all, much props need to be given to Jared Wilson in this book.  Wilson did more than simply write and introduction or throw his name on the cover of the book.  He is largely responsible for the flow of the book and capturing Chandler’s preaching style in written form.  If you have listened to Matt Chandler preach you know that may have been a difficult task, but Wilson did a tremendous job.  While reading through the book you could almost hear Chandler’s voice preaching through the pages. 

While that is a good thing about the book it may also be one negative.  There are certain things that those familiar with Chandler will “get” but it may be difficult for those not-initiated to track with.  In one instance Chandler quips, “God was angry and moved me to Abi­lene for seven years”.  Knowing Chandler I know that he is making a joke about Abilene.  But those not knowing neither Chandler or Abilene the joke may fall flat and be actually somewhat distracting. 

For me though, I love it.  I love listening to Chandler preach and his jokes are hilarious.  I think it is wonderful that they were able to capture this on the written page.  Others may not enjoy that as much.  I only mention that to make the reader aware either for good or ill. 

As for the content of the book it is tremendous.  I have been preaching and teaching the gospel for a decade now.  In doing so I have tried to labor time and time again to make the gospel explicit.  Yet in reading through this book there are ways that Chandler shares the gospel that will help my own preaching. 

For the preacher and non-preacher that reads this book I think you will walk away from it having a more clear understanding of the gospel.  You may not get new information but you will certainly grow in your articulation of the precious truths of the gospel.  This book is valuable if for no other reason that Chandler’s emphasis on preaching the gospel in both “ground” and “air” forms.  Both are necessary and Chandler does a tremendous job driving that point home. 

Chapter 11 is worth the price of the book.  Here he combats the moralistic therapeutic deism that is so prevalent in our day and age.  I am glad the tackles it and he does a tremendous job doing so. 

Should You Buy It?

I received this book for free at T4G on Thursday morning right before I left for lunch.  I was very excited to read through it—as I have been looking forward to this book hitting the shelves since January.  Unfortunately for my reading aspirations I felt deeply stirred by the Lord that I was to give this book as a very large “witness tract” to our waitress at TGIF. 

I have no idea what will become of having left her that book.  But what I do know is that if she picks it up and reads it she will “hear” the gospel.  And as Chandler rightly says in this book she will respond to it—either through rejecting it or embracing Christ (whether for the first time or anew).  For this reason you should purchase this book.  If you are a believer it will cause you great joy in hearing the gospel explicitly explained.  It will also help you articulate the gospel better yourself. 

If you are an unbeliever and really want to know what Christians believe about Jesus, you may not get all of your theological questions answered in this book, but you will hear the timeless message of the gospel.  The gospel is explicit in this book. 

For all things “gospel” that are being released Chandler’s book is almost a pre-requisite.  Buy a copy today.  And buy another copy to give away. 

The Pain of Being Blackballed by @Challies and @TGC: The TRUTH Comes Out

Mike Leake 20 Comments

Yesterday, I lamented my having been blackballed by Tim Challies and the Reformed Illuminati known as The Gospel Coalition.  Through years of faithful blogging I have been disregarded and mostly unnoticed. 

Hopefully you caught the humor in what I was doing and nobody actually took me serious.  I love Tim Challies, The Gospel Coaltion, and all those involved.  I’d be part of the Reformed Illuminati if they’d let me in.  I wrote what I did yesterday because I hoped to make a point today.  (Hopefully my point is not lost on anything that I wrote yesterday). 

Proverbs 18:17 says, “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him”. 

Everything that I said yesterday could, theoretically, be true.  It really could be possible that there is a conspiracy within the ranks of Challies and TGC.  They really could have read my stuff and somehow decided that I am a dangerous blogger that they should not give an audience to.  It really is possible.  And if you only read my side of the story from my very limited perspective (and if I hadn’t written it in such a ridiculous fashion) then you very well could have bought into this little conspiracy theory. 

Reality

There are two possibilities, though, that I absolutely refuse to accept that would refute my conspiracy theory.  The first possibility is that Challies and TGC have actually read a few of my posts and they are simply not up to the quality that they would like to feature on their blog.  Maybe my writin’ ain’t good enuf. 

A second possibility is that even though I follow Challies, TGC, and others on Twitter and Facebook and even though they may have me as a “friend” on their facebook account, or have seen my name appear on comments, they actually have no idea who I am.  They have honestly never read my blog.  Maybe an article here or there, but not enough to actually catch their attention.  They aren’t snubbing me—they just don’t know I exist.

What about Challies not saying hi to me at Band of Bloggers?  First of all, I doubt very seriously he would even know me, much less have a reason to say hi.  Secondly, I’m not sure many people on the internets even know what my face looks like.  You’d have to do some digging.  My Facebook profile is usually something ranging from Don Knotts to Gary Coleman.  And my twitter profile picture has been Ron Swanson and/or Prison Mike for the last few months.  Even if they knew my name they’d have no idea what I look like. 

My Point

Be really slow to jump on stories of conspiracy on the internet.  I have been involved in church discipline cases were it would have been wrong to have aired every aspect of a grievance.  Often times because people only hear one side of the story the assumption is that there must be some sort of mass cover up going on.  While that is certainly possible, and churches and Christian gatherings like TGC are not immune to power-gluttons, it is also quite possible that these are humble men and women that are simply using wisdom.

What appears to be “going on” is not always what is actually reality.  This does not mean that only “insiders” ought to be blogging or asking questions.  But it does mean that those who do not have a good majority of the information and are not privy to both sides in an issue should be very cautious and careful about making assumptions. 

What this also teaches us is that even in our everyday relationships we can wrongly assume that somebody is mad at us, blackballing us, ignoring us, giving us the silent treatment, etc. but in reality they have no idea what is even going on.  I have witnessed relationships be destroyed just because of a perceived offense or snub.  If you really do feel like you have offended a brother or if a brother has offended you the gospel calls us to make every effort at peace and reconciliation. 

If I really were offended or really were blackballed by Challies and TGC the method for reconciliation would not be to blog about it and expose them for all the world to hear my side of the story.  Reconciliation should happen by me emailing them and asking if my crazy theory is correct. 

Of course if I’m loony enough to believe such a conspiracy theory I am probably going to think that their gentle “no, there is no conspiracy” is really part of the conspiracy.  But at the end of the day I am still to make very effort to be at peace with them.  And if they are blackballing me (which they are not), and I have made an effort to reconcile, and then they do not reconcile, that is on them.  I don’t serve the Lord by exposing them.  I serve the Lord by praying for them and entrusting them to the work of the Holy Spirit.